Hyundai to Introduce New Electric Car Brand in China

Chinese flag via Wikipedia, Hyundai logo via HyundaiMore Electric Cars for ChinaHyundai's been on the ascendency these past few years, and they've decided to create a new electric vehicle brand exclusively for the Chinese market, in collaboration with Beijing Automotive (the Chinese government usually forces companies from outside the country to form joint ventures with local companies, mostly as a way to transfer technology). Plans are to start selling the first electric car from the new brand in the first half of 2012, which means they've been working on it for a while, or its based on another EV model that Hyundai plans to release elsewhere. And maybe the Chinese experience will help make EVs more affordable around the world...This is the Veloster Coupe, as shown in Detroit 2011. Could be one of the cars used to make EVs, but no announcements yet. Photo: Michael Graham Richard

China has been encouraging its automakers to jump into the burgeoning market of hybrid and electric cars so they will be able to vie with global rivals. The Chinese government said earlier that it will invest more than 100 billion yuan (US$15.5 billion) to help nurture the new car industry over 10 years, starting this year.

In May, the Chinese government launched a program to subsidize private purchases of alternative fuel cars in five cities -- Shanghai, Hangzhou, Changchun, Hefei and Shenzhen -- offering carmakers up to 50,000 yuan for each plug-in hybrid car and a maximum of 60,000 yuan for each full-electric vehicle. (source)

Chen Qingquan, chairman of the World Electric Vehicle Association, expected that the volume of new energy vehicles will reach 500,000 by 2015 in China and double to 1 million by 2020.

Hopefully EVs will ramp up even faster than that while China changes its infrastructure development from a car-centric model to a more sustainable model (bus rapid transit, bike sharing, subways, mix development that are walkable, etc).